


cold here without you

by doubled_helix



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 1930s stucky share a bed and have christmas together, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky's sisters ship it, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Mid-Credits Scene, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Mistletoe, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sharing a Bed, i didn't accept it, i tried to accept it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 22:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11450637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubled_helix/pseuds/doubled_helix
Summary: Bucky’s certain he protests when Steve tells the cat prince man (T'Challa,Bucky's never been good with names) to make the cryostasis chamber big enough for two.In fact, he protestsa lot, but T’Challa barely blinks as he adheres toCaptain America’swishes, of course. Bucky misses when he had more authority over Steve’s poor decisions.(Or: Steve goes into the ice with Bucky at the end of Civil War.)





	cold here without you

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to stop thinking about Bucky voluntarily going back into cryostasis and Steve actually letting him go after spending two years searching for him. And I succeeded, for about a year. Then last night I snapped and pounded out most of this at one in the morning. It's disgustingly self-indulgent and needlessly fluffy. 
> 
> I'm sorry.

The Soldier’s memory returns in drops, rounded beads of water struggling to meld together into a whole. He remembers a tiny blond head hurtling into alleys with all the ferocity of an angry squirrel – remembers thin chests and hitched breathing, endless gunfire to the beat of his heart, the muted horror of reaching out and feeling only cold air at his fingertips.

The Soldier remembers ice.

\---

The winter after Steve’s Ma dies isn’t so bad at first. Bucky bundles Steve up in two jackets and a scarf and takes him to old Ms. Shirley’s down by the docks, which is finally starting to empty out for Christmas.

“Just you wait, pal,” he grins, one arm wrapped around Steve’s shoulders. “Ms. Shirley makes the best damn cocoa on this side of Brooklyn. I ever tell you she near hunted us down after our shift unloading crates last month?” He lets out a long whistle. “That is one tough broad, I say.”

Steve grunts into the length of fabric covering his mouth. “Yeah, I remember. You didn’t come back until eleven.”

Bucky snorts, pulling Steve’s head closer and mussing the neat blond strands. “What? You jealous, Stevie?”

Steve makes a muffled sound of protest that goes unheard as Bucky escalates his teasing to physical proportions, tickling Steve’s sides until his determinedly grumpy frown dissolves into stifled laughter and cries of “No fair, Buck!”

A few yards away from them, the kids on the docks are trying to shove each other into the slushy water. They slide across the frozen wood, gloved digits scrabbling to hold onto slippery snow, and giggle when their hands grasp only air.

\---

The Soldier wakes up sometimes. He doesn’t know he’s been sleeping until there are bodies lying on the ground around him in pools of sticky red, until his finger has already tightened around the trigger – until his mask is ripped off and he sees startled blue eyes and pink lips forming a word he thinks he might have heard once in a dream years and years ago.

The Soldier wakes up sometimes, and all he feels is ice.

\---

The winter after Steve’s Ma dies, Steve gets real sick. His entire body trembles through three shirts and two thick blankets, little hands freezing and shivering like he’ll never get warm.

Bucky tends obsessively to the fireplace and pretends not to notice the little gift-wrapped box hidden haphazardly behind their ragged armchair. Mentally, he counts down the days to Christmas, and Bucky’s faith is not nearly as unconditional as Steve’s, but he prays anyways – for a warmer winter, softer times, and for Steve’s chest to stop rattling like a broken bell with every exhale.

“Buck?”

Bucky’s hands are black with ash. He quickly rubs them down his trousers before leaning in close and smoothing the covers tighter around Steve’s body. “What’s up, Stevie?”

“Say you’ll still go home for Christmas even if I’m still sick.”

There’s a soft-burning anger in his stomach that Bucky struggles to quell. He recognizes it as the righteous indignation that manifests whenever Steve does something particularly stupid.

“Alright, buddy.”

Steve’s eyes narrow, and it seems he can still spot Bucky’s bold-faced lies even while half-dying of pneumonia.

“Say it.”

Bucky is already halfway done shucking off his trousers so he can crawl into bed and warm Steve up through pure proximity (he’s done it so much over the years that the movement is both thoughtless and familiar). The intensity of Steve’s voice makes him pause.

“You giving me an ultimatum?” Bucky slides his body under the blankets and quickly tucks them back before any cold air can seep in. “That what you’re doing? Well, I got an ultimatum for you, Stevie. You can keep breathing, and we go home together–”

“Buck–”

“– or I’m coming right after you. You hear me?”

“Bucky, your _sisters_.”

“Will be mighty upset if you let their brother die before he gets their Christmas gifts.” Bucky lets out a breath then pauses to hear Steve do the same. He lowers his voice to a murmur. “We said we were going to have Christmas as a family, Stevie. I meant it. Did you?”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but he does shift so he’s facing away from Bucky, his body a tense quivering line. For a moment, Bucky wonders if he pushed too hard. He _knows_ how Steve, more than anyone, hates how sick he is all the time. But hearing him trying to convince Bucky to live without him (as if Bucky can even do such a thing) is so _frustrating_ –

Steve shifts again, and Bucky feels a hand clasp around his wrist. He smiles.

“My sisters can’t wait for you to draw them again,” he says. “They’ve also got some requests, and they’re a mite bit concerning, I tell you.”

Steve presses his nose into Bucky’s neck. “I like your sisters.”

“They’re tiny menaces. Like you.” Bucky feels a half-hearted blow to his stomach and laughs. “You planning to beat me up, Stevie?”

“I should. You’re all sweaty and gross, you big furnace.”

Bucky laughs again.

Two weeks later, Bucky’s sisters hide mistletoe all around the apartment. Bucky kisses Steve seven times across his flushed face before the day ends.

The Christmas is good.

\---

The Soldier ( _no, Bucky, he called me Bucky)_ knows that his target ( _friend)_ is searching for him. He’s getting better now, he thinks, whatever _better_ is. Last week, he purchased fruit from a merchant and didn’t imagine a dozen different ways to take out the cheerful old man before anyone noticed.

The Soldier stares at the picture he procured of his target where it sits amidst the pages of his journal. It was ridiculously expensive to acquire, and in the process of purchasing it, he was forced to subject himself to a gaggle of overexcited teenagers passing around stuffed plushies of _his_ Steve–

The Soldier knows that Steve and his strangely loyal bird friend have been raiding Hydra bases around the world to find him. Bucky stacks three plums together and thinks that he might let them.

\---

Bucky meets Steve again, and nothing goes right.

There are words – those awful, awful _words_ , and the Soldier is back, and his metal fingers are wrapping around Steve’s neck and hurting him and hurting him, and his eyes are so blue and confused, and _Bucky was getting better, damn it._

Siberia is cold, and Steve leaves his shield behind.

Bucky doesn’t say it, but he’s glad.

\---

Bucky’s certain he protests when Steve tells the cat prince man ( _T’Challa_ , Bucky’s never been good with names) to make the cryostasis chamber big enough for two.

In fact, he protests _a lot_ , but T’Challa barely blinks as he adheres to _Captain America’s_ wishes, of course. Bucky misses when he had more authority over Steve’s poor decisions.

“Steve, you can’t just check out on your friends like this,” he tries to argue one last time as the glass pane closes around them. “Don’t they need you?” Bucky Googled Steve’s name the second he figured out how to use the Internet. Needless to say, he almost had an embolism in the library and was now infinitely more astounded over how the punk managed to stay alive without Bucky or Peggy Carter looking after him. Maybe he should thank the bird man if ( _when)_ he comes back. “I hear New York gets attacked by pixies or something every week.”

Steve hesitates before answering, so Bucky knows the question was probably plaguing him as well.

“Bucky, I’m _tired_ of always doing the right thing. And I can’t – I _refuse_ to leave you again.” Steve sighs. “Go ahead, call me selfish.”

For some reason, Bucky is struck with the memory of a gray cat and her kittens that he and Steve had found one winter on the way home, so long ago. They were huddled like small stones in the snow, but only the mother was moving. After being nursed back to health, the cat pattered around their apartment for about a week. The next day, she had disappeared, right back out into the sweeping January blizzard.

“I’m not going to call you selfish, Stevie,” Bucky says gently, “but I think you should carefully consider this decision you’re making.”

“Bucky.” Steve’s voice is firm and so decidedly stubborn and _Steve_ that Bucky has to suppress a grin. “We said till the end of the line. I meant it.” God, his eyes are so _blue_. “Did you?”

A weight Bucky didn’t know he was holding lifts. He cracks a smile.

“You’re a punk.”

“Jerk.”

Bucky’s last memory is being pleasantly, achingly _warm_.

**Author's Note:**

> Many apologies again. I needed this to cope. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
